new recruit, seeking advice re: poor weight gain
first, allow me to introduce myself. my name is jill, bfing attached sahm to ds, aiden, who will be 3 mos on march 7. married to dh, eric, for 3 years march 20. will include pics of me and aiden behind the cut. now onto my problem, sorry if this is long, but i want to be as specific as possible.
background: have been nursing aiden exclusively since day one. we practice cue feeding and night feeding. basically, i give him boob whenever he wants. so he nurses all the time. we were unable to find a lactation consultant in the beginning, but we didnt really know we needed one. i thought things were fine. he was really cranky in the first month, and i realised, despite my efforts, he wasnt getting enough milk. he was very thin and acted hungry all the time. so i made some adjustments to our routine. i offered the breast more often, paid closer attention to his latch, switched sides (with some burping and bouncing in between to get him alert again) when he was acting bored or pacifying or falling asleep on the one side. i also started doing breast compression, tried pumping (which i have never been successful at), and breast massage. i added more fat to my diet, and ate more, thinking it was a deficient diet producing low fat milk. i was instructed to weigh him weekly after my last visit to the midwife, because he was gaining about a pound a month, but he was very thin and on the bottom of the charts. i felt that weekly weigh-ins would be counter productive to my confidence level and therefore my let down and milk production, so i decided to be vigilant instead about his appearance and attitude, as well as peed and poopied diapers. his attitude was much improved, his skin elasticity was good, bright eyes, plenty of pees and poops, strong limbs, resting and alert periods seemed good. poops vary from 2 to 5 a day, nearly always at least 2. wets are at least 6 per day. i started laying out 10 diapers every morning and they usually all get used before the next morning.
current issue: all those things are still really good but i took him in for a weigh in today (4 weeks after his last weigh in. i felt this was a sufficient spacing, considering how well he seemed to be doing) and he had only gained 10 oz. i will chart out his weight and height for you, if that is important:
birth: 7 lbs 0 oz, 20 in
6 weeks: 8 lbs, 4 oz (gain of 20 oz), 23 in
8 weeks: 8 lbs, 14 oz (gain of 10 oz), no height measurement
12 weeks: 9 lbs, 8 oz (gain of 10 oz), 24 in
while i am aware that this isnt terrible weight gain, it is still pretty low, and there are some other issues. like i said, he nurses constantly. he cluster feeds at night and in the mornings, but usually nurses for an hour, than off for an hour when hes not cluster feeding. and he always seems like he is still hungry, even right after eating.
things i notice at the breast: he only actively swallows for short periods of time, less than 5 minutes. nothing i do to him seems to get him to actively drink for longer. he also gets very frustrated with my slow let-down, often frustrated enough to give up entirely. i have tried lots of tricks to get it to let down faster, but nothing has worked. i think this is because he nurses so frequently that my let down is weak. when, on a rare occasion, i go longer between feedings, my let down is almost immediate. at the end of the first month, i tried to stretch out feedings very slightly, but he seemed miserable so i went back to feeding him all the time.
thanks in advance for all your help. i hope that covers everything. i really dont want to supplement, but my baby is hungry and skinny. any ideas?
pictures are from 2 weeks ago, tried to pick ones that showed his physique.
and since i love showing off my baby, if you want to see more pics, there is a boatload at http://photobucket.com/albums/y203/jillteresa/boohbah/
background: have been nursing aiden exclusively since day one. we practice cue feeding and night feeding. basically, i give him boob whenever he wants. so he nurses all the time. we were unable to find a lactation consultant in the beginning, but we didnt really know we needed one. i thought things were fine. he was really cranky in the first month, and i realised, despite my efforts, he wasnt getting enough milk. he was very thin and acted hungry all the time. so i made some adjustments to our routine. i offered the breast more often, paid closer attention to his latch, switched sides (with some burping and bouncing in between to get him alert again) when he was acting bored or pacifying or falling asleep on the one side. i also started doing breast compression, tried pumping (which i have never been successful at), and breast massage. i added more fat to my diet, and ate more, thinking it was a deficient diet producing low fat milk. i was instructed to weigh him weekly after my last visit to the midwife, because he was gaining about a pound a month, but he was very thin and on the bottom of the charts. i felt that weekly weigh-ins would be counter productive to my confidence level and therefore my let down and milk production, so i decided to be vigilant instead about his appearance and attitude, as well as peed and poopied diapers. his attitude was much improved, his skin elasticity was good, bright eyes, plenty of pees and poops, strong limbs, resting and alert periods seemed good. poops vary from 2 to 5 a day, nearly always at least 2. wets are at least 6 per day. i started laying out 10 diapers every morning and they usually all get used before the next morning.
current issue: all those things are still really good but i took him in for a weigh in today (4 weeks after his last weigh in. i felt this was a sufficient spacing, considering how well he seemed to be doing) and he had only gained 10 oz. i will chart out his weight and height for you, if that is important:
birth: 7 lbs 0 oz, 20 in
6 weeks: 8 lbs, 4 oz (gain of 20 oz), 23 in
8 weeks: 8 lbs, 14 oz (gain of 10 oz), no height measurement
12 weeks: 9 lbs, 8 oz (gain of 10 oz), 24 in
while i am aware that this isnt terrible weight gain, it is still pretty low, and there are some other issues. like i said, he nurses constantly. he cluster feeds at night and in the mornings, but usually nurses for an hour, than off for an hour when hes not cluster feeding. and he always seems like he is still hungry, even right after eating.
things i notice at the breast: he only actively swallows for short periods of time, less than 5 minutes. nothing i do to him seems to get him to actively drink for longer. he also gets very frustrated with my slow let-down, often frustrated enough to give up entirely. i have tried lots of tricks to get it to let down faster, but nothing has worked. i think this is because he nurses so frequently that my let down is weak. when, on a rare occasion, i go longer between feedings, my let down is almost immediate. at the end of the first month, i tried to stretch out feedings very slightly, but he seemed miserable so i went back to feeding him all the time.
thanks in advance for all your help. i hope that covers everything. i really dont want to supplement, but my baby is hungry and skinny. any ideas?
pictures are from 2 weeks ago, tried to pick ones that showed his physique.
and since i love showing off my baby, if you want to see more pics, there is a boatload at http://photobucket.com/albums/y203/jillteresa/boohbah/